Intellectual Bullying From The Day-Old Cruller

The Daily Crawler may have paid someone to type this, though most bloviators will give it up for free, especailly after an explanation that The D.C. just can't blow through all that venture capital right away. After all, Tucker had to suck up plenty for it. We can only wonder in which men's room the up-sucking occurred.

That may be true, but it misses Wieseltier’s real point, which is not that Sullivan is an anti-Semite. No, Wieseltier’s real point is that Sullivan is a nasty crank and intellectual bully—and Wieseltier is absolutely right about this.

Indeed, Sullivan commits myriad calumnies against logic and reason while indulging his most angry, bitter, and bile-fueled feelings toward a select group of people and organizations, including (and perhaps limited to): Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the pope, the Catholic church, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, John Yoo, Marc Thiessen, and the U.S. military.

Wieseltier, in fact, makes this point about Sullivan while defending the esteemed Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer. Krauthammer, Wieseltier notes, is Sullivan’s intellectual polar opposite—a man of calm and careful reason and thoughtful analysis:*

“Whatever the merits of his [Krauthammer’s] views, I do not see that his motives are despicable.

“Moreover, Krauthammer argues for his views; the premises of his analysis are coldly clear, and may be engaged analytically, and when necessary refuted. Unlike Sullivan, he does not present feelings as ideas… Sullivan is hunting for motives, not reasons; for conspiracies, which is the surest sign of a mind’s bankruptcy.”

Wieseltier hones in on Sullivan’s odd obsession with Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu, and suggests that “something much darker”—perhaps anti-Semitism—may be at work in Andrew’s strange mind.

We're amused at the very concept of "intellectual bullying." (Especially in this case, as Weaseldick spends the whole thing going on about how Sullivan is anti-semitic, w/o having the guts to come right out & type it. Who's the bully again?) How are words & arguments "bullying?" If one's arguments, words & so on are weak & pathetic, one might interpret having them demolished as "bullying," but claiming "bullying" only reinforces the pathetic weakness. Stop playing the victim card, intellectual weaklings.

*As clearly indicated by his habit of diving into empty swimming pools.